belonging to the north-western culture; the centre of the Ch'iang tribes
was more in the south-west of Shansi and in Shensi. Some of these tribes
definitely once formed a part of the earlier Hsia state. The
identification of the eastern neighbours of the Shang presents more
difficulties. We might regard them as representatives of the Tai and Yao
cultures.

2 _Writing and Religion_

Not only the material but also the intellectual level attained in the
Shang period was very high. We meet for the first time with
writing--much later than in the Middle East and in India. Chinese
scholars have succeeded in deciphering some of the documents discovered,
so that we are able to learn a great deal from them. The writing is a
rudimentary form of the present-day Chinese script, and like it a
pictorial writing, but also makes use, as today, of many phonetic signs.
There were, however, a good many characters that no longer exist, and
many now used are absent. There were already more than 3,000 characters
in use of which some 1,000 can now be read. (Today newspapers use some
3,000 characters; scholars have command of up to 8,000; the whole of
Chinese literature, ancient and modern, comprises some 50,000
characters.) With these 3,000 characters the Chinese of the Shang period
were able to express themselves well.

The still existing fragments of writing of this period are found almost
exclusively on tortoiseshells or on other bony surfaces, and they
represent oracles. As early as in the Lung-shan culture there was
divination by means of "oracle bones", at first without written
characters. In the earliest period any bones of animals (especially
shoulder-bones) were used; later only tortoiseshell. For the purpose of